Crabtree's tale: Lorna's dissatisfaction

"I demand to see the manager!" Lorna Partridge insisted for the third time.

After several minutes and various telephone conversations between Sharon, the Pricefighter check-out operator, and a mysterious third party on the other end of the line, during which a broad range of repressed "haven’t got all day"-type expressions and looks were issued by other shoppers, Lorna was eventually told what she wished to hear.

"Mr Hardacre is extremely busy at the moment but he’ll be out to attend to you as soon as he can." Lorna’s recent purchase and study of a snappily-entitled "Be yourself, feel yourself" teach-yourself assertiveness course, was obviously paying off.

She was ushered through some double doors into a gloomy no person’s land that appeared to serve as an interface between the brightly-lit safety of the shoppers’ area and the nitty-gritty reality of the behind-the-scenes world of Pricefighter’s.

As soon as he can proved to be a long time. Lorna was fuming. She had recently paid a considerable amount of money for a Gulabgarnath-brand snake charmer’s kit, the punji (or flute-like gourd instrument) of which had proved of quite unsatisfactory quality.

Although the kit had been on special offer and was neither a latest nor top-of-range model, according to the instruction manual, when played by an expert the punji would undoubtedly produce dulcet enough vibrations to tempt even the shyest Russell’s Viper (Vipera russelli) or Indian cobra (Naja naja) out of its basket.

Lorna had been drawn to charming after she had come across one of Sir Reginald’s old notebooks in the garden shed, a structure known by neighbours as Hurricane Hattie. One entry in her grandfather’s notes gave a detailed description of how his man Crabtree had attained expert charming skills when he had accompanied Sleeping on the naturalist’s mid-nineteenth century expedition to the deserts of Rajasthan, India.